To Fix a Peach
A few summers ago, I looked down a box of peaches at my feet and began to get upset. I instantly experienced that every peach was old, mealy, and flavorless despite being in season in the region they shipped from. We had received premium quality and even let the peaches sit to ripen before use. I held up at disappointing peach, looked at my Sous Chef and in my frustration told him that “I’m going to fix this.” He smiled, laughed and asked “fix a peach?”
Arguably the greatest chef of all time and certainly one of the most influential, Alain Ducasse, once said, “A cook’s task is to make something very good out of what is already very fine.”
The primary doctrine of any great cook, is that a better quality product inherently equals better quality food. It the cook’s fundamental duty to seek out and serve the best food possible. Through this responsibility, the individual truly values their work, trade, farmers, guests and community.
I never imagined that my work as a chef would lead me to seek to resolve that question. In retrospect it seems natural. I always assumed that I would simply work in great restaurants, learn from the best, and have an opportunity to serve my community a meal honed and refined from my experiences. I never thought it would be that very education that would spark the understanding that it was time to make meaningful changes happen. It is impossible for me now to imagine continuing in my profession turning a blind-eye to a flavorless peach. I realized I must acknowledge the relationship between my work, the culture, and ecology where it is practiced.
Akin to stealing from a home’s foundation to build a second-story, no great culture can be built without providing a solid foundation. No great foundation is formed without the necessary resources. The great food cultures, the ones we tend to glorify: Italy, France, Spain, Japan, etc. all have one thing in common. They exemplify a sustained effort by individuals and societies, on all levels, to not only pass on the recipes and techniques of their history, but to preserve and honor the land and resources from which they spring. These societies understand the relationship between the earth and human culture. Land is more than just a tool, or the supplies to build a home. It is both the tool and the supplies, it is the primary resource. Both tool and supply are useless without the existence and maintenance of the other.
The Tampa Bay Community, over generations, has lost this understanding. We have not sought to renew our relationship with the land and for it, our culture has suffered. This is not to say that there is no effort from people seeking to renew their relationship with the land and food. There are people seeking this out and they are doing it quite well. However, overall we, the community on all levels, have not. We have been on a fast-track losing our culture and we are now resting amongst the fall-out.
What does that fall-out look like? You can see it in the closing of farms like Ceebees while attempting to preserve part of our strong history and diversity in the citrus industry. It’s in the loss of the last local dairy farm in Brandon. It’s in the visually beautiful but under-ripened California tomatoes at the local grocery. It’s in the ever depleted catch when you go fishing. And it’s on your plate, right in front of you.
Given the depth of the issue no one person is to blame. There are a lot of different elements that play a part in this problem. I’m not writing this with all the answers, I have ideas and I have a desire. I have a desire to improve the state of things for us here in Tampa. I believe that begins with shared desire, conversation and planning.
The time has never been more ripe to begin to define our future here, to improve what’s in our daily lives and on our plates. It’s time for us as a community to come together to fix a peach.
Wesley Roderick